M¨unster J. of Math. 7 (2014), 51–81 M¨unster Journal of Mathematics urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-22359595336 c M¨unster J. of Math. 2014 Relative continuous K-theory and cyclic homology Alexander Beilinson (Communicated by Christopher Deninger) To Peter Schneider Introduction 0.1. Let A be a unital associative p-adic ring, p is a prime, so A = lim A ←− i i where Ai := A/p . Let I ⊆ A be a two-sided ideal such that the I-adic topology equals the p-adic one, i.e., pm ∈ I and Im ⊆ pA for large enough m. Set Ii := IAi. The projective system of rings Ai and ideals Ii yields the relative K-theory ∧ pro-spectrum K(A, I) := “lim”K(Ai,Ii) and the cyclic chain pro-complex ∧ CC(A) := “lim”CC(Ai). Our main result, see 2.2, is a construction (subject to minor conditions on A) of a natural homotopy equivalence of the corre- sponding pro-spectra up to quasi-isogeny ∧ ∼ ∧ (0.1.1) K(A, I)Q −→ CC(A) [1]Q. This homotopy equivalence is a continuous version of Goodwillie’s isomor- phism K(R, J) −→∼ CC(R, J)[1] valid for any Q-algebra R and a nilpotent two-sided ideal J, see [5] or [9, 11.3] The construction follows closely that of Goodwillie, with a characteristic p simplification (the difference between ∧ ∧ CC(A) and CC(A, I) , being of torsion, disappears) and the Malcev theory input replaced by a version of Lazard’s theory. 0.2. Here is a geometric application (see 2.4): Let E be a p-adic field, OE its ring of integers, X be a proper OE-scheme with smooth generic fiber XE, Y ⊆ X be any closed subscheme whose support equals the closed fiber. Set The author was supported in part by NSF Grant DMS-0401164. 52 Alexander Beilinson i Xi := X ⊗ Z/p . Then (0.1.1) yields a canonical identification of Q-vector spaces (0.2.1) Q ⊗ lim KB (X ,Y ) −→∼ Q ⊗ R lim KB (X ,Y ) −→∼ H2a−n(X )/F a. ←− n−1 i ←− n−1 i M dR E a Here KB is the nonconnective K-theory (see [16, § 6]) and F • is the Hodge filtration on the de Rham cohomology. The subjects left untouched: (i) comparison of the composition of (0.2.1) and the boundary map KB(Y ) → lim KB (X ,Y ) with the crystalline char- n ←− n−1 i acteristic class map for Y (here Y can be arbitrary singular, see [2] for the basics of the crystalline story in that setting), and (ii) comparison with the p-adic regulators theory (see [14]). 0.3. This article comes from an attempt to understand the work of Bloch, Esnault, and Kerz [1] where an identification similar to (0.2.1) was constructed under extra assumptions on X. The method of [1] is different (and it remains to be checked that the two isomorphisms coincide). Its input is McCarthy’s identification of K-theory of an arbitrary ring relative to a nilpotent ideal with the relative topological cyclic homology, see [3]. One has then to identify the topological cyclic homology with truncated de Rham cohomology. Unlike the classical cyclic homology case, this presents a problem, and the passage taken in [1]—with ´etale cohomology of XE as a way station—is not easy. It would be nice to find conditions on (R, J), where p is nilpotent in R and J nilpotent, that would imply Ki(R, J) = Hi−1CC(R, J) for i < p, cp. [1, 8.5]. 1. Spectral preliminaries Given a sequence · · · → A → A of abelian groups, then (lim A ) ⊗ Q 1 0 ←− i is not determined if we know merely Ai ⊗ Q, but we are in good shape if Ai are known up to subgroups of torsion whose exponent is bounded by a constant independent of i. We will see that some natural maps known to be isomorphisms in rational homotopy theory are, in fact, invertible up to universally bounded denominators. Thus they remain to be isomorphisms in the rational homotopy theory of pro-spaces. 1.1. Spectra up to isogeny. (a) Let C be an additive category. We say that a nonzero integer n kills an object X of C if n idX = 0; X is a bounded torsion object if it is killed by some n as above. A map f : X → Y in C is an isogeny if there is g : Y → X such that fg = n idY and gf = n idX for some nonzero integer n. We denote by C ⊗ Q the category equipped with functor C → CQ, X 7→ XQ, that is bijective on objects and yields identification Hom(XQ,YQ) = Hom(X, Y ) ⊗ Q. We call XQ the object up to isogeny that corresponds to X. Notice that f is an isogeny if and only if fQ is invertible, and C ⊗ Q is the localization of C with respect to isogenies; one has XQ = 0, i.e., X is isogenous to 0, if and only if X is a bounded torsion object. M¨unster Journal of Mathematics Vol. 7 (2014), 51–81 Relative continuous K-theory and cyclic homology 53 If I is a category and X, Y : I → C are functors, then a morphism of functors f : X → Y is said to be an isogeny if there is a morphism g : G → F such that fg = n idY and gf = n idX for some nonzero integer n. (If I is essentially small, this means that f is an isogeny in the category CI.) If C is abelian then C⊗Q is abelian as well, and it coincides with the quotient CQ of C modulo the Serre subcategory of bounded torsion objects. If C carries a tensor structure then bounded torsion objects form an ideal, hence CQ is a tensor category and C → CQ is a tensor functor. In particular, the category Ab of abelian groups yields the tensor abelian category AbQ. Remark. The functor AbQ → VectQ, XQ 7→ X ⊗ Q, is not an equivalence of categories (for the category VectQ of Q-vector spaces is the quotient of Ab modulo the Serre subcategory of groups all of whose elements are torsion). One 1 1 has Ext (XQ,YQ) = Ext (X, Y ) ⊗ Q, hence AbQ has homological dimension 1 1 (since Ext in AbQ is right exact). AbQ does not admit infinite direct sums and products. It would be nice to refine the Quillen–Sullivan theory of rational homotopy types to homotopy types up to isogeny (i.e., modulo Serre’s class of abelian groups of bounded torsion). For the present article only stable theory is needed. (b) For an ∞-category treatment of the theory of spectra, see [11, 1.4.3]. Let Sp be the stable ∞-category of spectra; by abuse of notation, we denote by Sp its homotopy category as well. This is a t-category with heart Ab: the subcategory Sp≥0 is formed by connective spectra, the t-structure homology functor is the (stable) homotopy groups functor X 7→ π•(X), the t-structure truncations X → τ≤nX are Postnikov’s truncations. The t-structure is nonde- generate: if all πn(X) = 0 then X = 0. Sp is a symmetric tensor ∞-category with respect to the smash product ∧, see [11, 6.3.2]. It is right t-exact and induces the usual tensor product on the heart Ab; the unit object is the sphere spectrum S. Let D(Ab) be the stable ∞-category of chain complexes of abelian groups, see [11, 1.3.5.3, 8.1.2.8, 8.1.2.9]; we denote again by D(Ab) its homotopy cate- gory which is the derived category of Ab with its standard t-structure. D(Ab) is a symmetric tensor ∞-category with the usual tensor product ⊗. The Eilenberg–MacLane functor EM : D(Ab) → Sp that identifies com- plexes with abelian spectra is naturally an ∞-category functor. EM is t-exact and equals IdAb on the heart. It sends rings to rings and modules to mod- ules, so the 0th Eilenberg–Maclane spectrum ZSp := EM(Z) is a unital ring spectrum and EM lifts to a functor D(Ab) → ZSp-mod (:= the ∞-category of ZSp-modules in Sp). The latter functor is an equivalence of categories, see [11, 8.1.2.13]. − Let Sp := ∪nSp≥0[−n] be the stable ∞-subcategory of eventually connec- tive spectra; this is a tensor subcategory of Sp. A map X → Y in Sp− is called quasi-isogeny if all maps πn(X) → πn(Y ) are isogenies, or, equivalently, all maps τ≤nX → τ≤nY are isogenies in the homotopy category of spectra. − Thus X ∈ Sp is quasi-isogenous to 0 if each πn(X) is a bounded torsion M¨unster Journal of Mathematics Vol. 7 (2014), 51–81 54 Alexander Beilinson group, or, equivalently, every τ≤nX is a bounded torsion spectrum; such X form a thick subcategory. Lemma. This subcategory is a ∧-ideal in Sp−. Proof. Suppose X, Y ∈ Sp− and Y quasi-isogenous to 0; let us check that X ∧ Y is quasi-isogenous to 0. We can assume, replacing X, Y by their shifts, that X and Y are connective. Then τ≤n(X ∧ Y ) = τ≤n(X ∧ τ≤nY ), and we are done. − − The corresponding Verdier quotient category SpQ of Sp is a symmetric tensor t-category. We call its objects spectra up to quasi-isogeny; for a spec- trum X we denote by XQ the corresponding spectrum up to quasi-isogeny. − − Consider the derived categories D (Ab), D (AbQ) of bounded above com- − − plexes of abelian groups.